World Map and Challenges: planning a block-style world for ABC Books and Ray's Arithmetic (plan) 13OCT2026

A plan to turn the lesson list into a world the child builds, with friendly bosses, read-aloud spells, quests and a campfire streak

Posted by on 13th Oct 2026

This is a planning post. Nothing in it is built yet. It records the plan for making the gamified books at abcbooks.fyi (ABC Books and Ray's Arithmetic) feel more like a block-building game, so a future session can build it from here. A rebuild guide will follow for each phase once it's live.

The idea in one paragraph

Today each book opens to a map of lesson tiles. The plan replaces that with a world the child builds by reading. Each finished lesson adds a building, a tree or an animal from that lesson's story. Every few lessons a friendly "boss" reviews what the child missed. Some doors only open when the child reads a line aloud. Small daily quests and a campfire streak bring the child back each day. The lessons themselves (words, listen, read aloud, trace print, trace cursive, blackboard) stay exactly as they are.

Who it's for

  • Three children: twin girls aged 5 and one child aged 7.
  • Each child has their own world. Nothing on screen compares one child with another.
  • Difficulty comes from the book, not the age. A child who reads ahead gets the harder features on their own.

What a session looks like

  1. The child picks their name and lands on their own world map.
  2. A glowing path leads to today's lesson. Finished lessons show what they built; lessons ahead are covered in fog.
  3. They tap the glowing spot and do the lesson as now.
  4. A reward screen shows the new piece for their world, and any quest progress.
  5. Back on the map, the piece drops into place with a sound and the path moves on one step.
  6. Tapping anything they built replays the line from the story it came from (the cat says the cat's line).

The worlds (option 2: world map)

Each book is its own area of the map:

  • Primer: a farm with a barn, animals from the stories, a garden and a pond.
  • Spell & Read: a small island next to the farm.
  • First Reader: a village with a school, shops and a well.
  • Second Reader: woods and a river, with a mill and a bridge.
  • Third Reader: hills and a castle.
  • Fourth to Sixth Readers: a coast with ships and a lighthouse, then a mountain city.
  • Ray's Arithmetic: a mine under the mountain.
    • Each correct answer is a pickaxe hit; finishing a lesson opens a new tunnel with ore or gems.
    • Crafting uses the math: "3 rows of 4 planks" builds a table.
    • Each Ray's book goes one level deeper: stone, iron, gold, then crystal caves.

Look: flat block-style tiles seen from above, dark mode, drawn from simple shapes so the page stays light on Fire tablets. It's 2D only, no 3D engine.

The challenges (option 4)

  • Boss reviews: after every 5 to 8 lessons a guardian blocks the path. The child answers a few quick questions built from words and sums they missed earlier, and each right answer knocks a block off the guardian. There is no failing: a missed question comes back and the guardian gets weaker each try.
  • Reading spells: some doors, chests and bridges open only when the child reads a line aloud. This reuses the reading check the apps already have on CT 307 (abc-speech, the Vosk server). Without a mic, a grown-up marks it, as in the lessons.
  • Daily quests: small goals like "Finish 1 lesson" or "Trace 5 letters neatly". Finishing them gives a bonus piece for the world.
  • Campfire streak: the fire on the map grows each day in a row the child reads. A missed day makes it smaller but never puts it out.

By age

Ages 4 to 6 (Primer, Spell & Read, First Reader, Ray's Primary)

  • Big tiles, a path that only goes forward, everything spoken so a non-reader never has to read the screen.
  • Friendly helper bosses (a sleepy cow that wakes up as you answer) with 3 questions about letter sounds and words.
  • One-word spells: "Say 'cat' to open the gate."
  • One daily quest; the campfire is a picture with no numbers.

Ages 7 to 9 (Second to Fourth Readers, Ray's Intellectual and Practical)

  • A branching path with side trails to bonus chests.
  • Guardian bosses (a troll on the bridge) with 5 questions mixing missed words, word meanings and math facts.
  • Whole-sentence spells.
  • Three daily quests to choose from; Ray's crafting starts here.

Ages 10 and up (Fifth and Sixth Readers, Ray's Higher) — on hold for now

  • An open map where the child picks the order inside an area.
  • Bosses with about 8 questions, including questions about the lesson and multi-step math, with an optional timed mode for a bonus.
  • Short poems or speeches as spells; week-long quest chains ("Read 3 poems to restore the lighthouse"); the streak shows real numbers and a personal best.

The twins

  • Each twin gets her own farm with her own colour and her name on the farm sign.
  • Some animals and buildings vary at random, so the two farms never look alike.
  • If they do the same lesson side by side, both get a reward, but different ones, so neither has the "better" farm.
  • Maybe later: a shared barn on both farms that fills when either twin finishes a lesson, something to cheer about together without competing.

Rules for every phase

  • Rewards come after a lesson is finished, never in the middle.
  • Every child's world, quests and streak are their own.
  • Our own kid-friendly names, never characters from other games or books.
  • Every new spoken line is recorded in the same Eloquence "Reed" voice the books use.
  • Each phase gets its own rebuild-guide post in this section.

Build plan

Phase 1: all three children can play (about 6 to 8 sessions)

  • Shared foundation, one module used by both apps: world-map screen, reward step after each lesson, boss-review engine from missed items, quests and streak, all saved per child (2 to 3 sessions, including a Fire tablet test).
  • The farm for the 5-year-olds (about 2 sessions): about 30 tile pictures and 150 to 200 new recordings. Both twins' farms reuse the same pictures with different colours and layouts.
  • The village for the 7-year-old (1 to 2 sessions).
  • The start of the Ray's mine (about 1 session).

Phase 2: as the children move up (about 3 sessions)

  • Woods and castle worlds, deeper mine levels, math mixed into the boss reviews.
  • Built when the 7-year-old nears the end of the Second Reader.

Phase 3: ages 10 and up

  • Coast and mountain city, timed bosses, weekly quest chains. On hold for years.

Where it plugs in

  • Lesson map: openBook() in each app's app.js already works out which lessons are done and which one is next (see the Go to any lesson post). The world map would read the same progress.
  • Progress: saved per child in the browser, under the keys the apps already use (abcbooks and rays). It could later move to a server so it follows the child between devices.
  • Audio: the existing recording tools (make-audio.ps1, push-audio.ps1) add the new reward, boss and quest lines.
  • Hosting: no new containers. The pages stay on CT 306 (abc-web) and reading checks on CT 307 (abc-speech).
  • Offline app: the service worker cache version goes up with each phase, so installed apps pick up the change.

Open questions

  • Pictures: draw simple block tiles in code (free, fast, matches dark mode), or use a pixel-art tile pack (looks nicer, may cost money, needs a licence check)?
  • Shared barn for the twins: yes or no?
  • Which child is in which book today, so each world starts in the right place.

Status

  • 13OCT2026: plan agreed, nothing built yet.